Ragesoss is likely to be busy this weekend with family matters, and I'm out of town. Any extra help with In the News, News & Notes, and the publication process would be great. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 17:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Interviews? I have been thinking about a possible series of interviews with the foundation staff. interview questions getting drafted here; please sign up/help out if you'd like. I also added a section for interviews with arbcom/board candidates, looking to the future. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 19:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Usability project - At some point, I would like to do a special story on the usability initiative. This might tie in with the staff interviews mentioned above. I need to come up with questions and some background. The usability project is beginning to show results, with forthcoming improvements to the search interface and a new MediaWiki skin, and I expect more. --Aude (talk) 23:54, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Request for comments I've discussed with Ragesoss the idea of doing a story on the history and utility of our RFC process. I was going to hit up User:Mav for thoughts as they were the person who initiated the process at that name, and I'll dig about the page history to see what else to look for. Ragesoss has pertinent info on the wider usage of RFCs. Anyone have any thoughts on other avenues. I was going to ask around about recent RFCs and see how useful the requesters had found them. Might have a chat to a friendly arb? Any other bases to be covered? Any questions I should be asking? HidingT20:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Interview with John Blossom - I am currently interviewing John Blossom, the author of Content Nation, on facebook. If anyone has any questions they would like me to ask, feel free to drop a note here or on my talk page.
Office hours with Sue Gardner - for this week, we can include something on the office hours. Right now it's in interview / notes format, but could be reformatted, or maybe just summarized and be part of news & notes. --Aude (talk) 00:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Signpost writers can claim responsibility for regular features, and continue writing their beat for as long as they wish. If you would like to be a Signpost beat writer, add you name to the beat(s) you want. If you'd be willing to cover a beat that is already covered by another editor, or are willing to cover it sporadically when the normal writer can't, add your name as well so you can be contacted when the need arises - the more the merrier. If a beat is not covered by anyone and there is no draft for the next issue listed above, anyone should feel free to write it that week.
The Signpost's editor-in-chief is normally in charge of setting and enforcing deadlines for publication each week, making final editorial decisions about what to publish, and for carrying out the publications process.
I like the idea of having opinion pieces; I think if we get some that are written well, they will be a very good addition. My question is how the decision to run them will be made. Is this an editor-in-chief thing, or is it anyone-who-wants-to may provide input? Second question is a minor style point. When referring to editors, should it be written [[User:Foo]], or [[User:Foo|Foo]]? My preference is the former, and without doing any significant checking, I seem to recall that being the format used traditionally. The latter seems to be used often lately, though. ÷seresin22:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the decision of what to run, the "anyone-who-wants-to may provide input" model seems the most appropriate to me. The way I imagined it working would be to use the opinion desk as a holding pen for non-time-sensitive pieces to give feedback and try to find ways to improve and polish them (and to collect sets of related pieces), and publish pieces or sets once they are mature. I think the "White Barbarian" essay would be a good way to start it off this week. There are some other submissions that are strong, but most of them I think could use some feedback and polishing.
As for referring to editors, the convention that I've been using lately is "[[User:Foo|Foo's Real Name]] (User:Foo)" for users who identify themselves by their real names on their userpages, and "[[User:Foo|Foo]]" for those who don't. But I'm not wedded to that, it just seemed like a good combination of naturalness and transparency. I think a Signpost style guide would be useful.--ragesoss (talk) 00:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To create the article layout, paste the following code into a blank page and save it. The parameters are: 1) Story headline, 2) Your username, 3) Month and day of publication, 4) Date of previous edition, 5) Date of next edition. The last two parameters are optional, and only applicable for regular features. Extra authors can be added afterwards.
